Brazeau confirms he’s working at Ottawa’s Barefax strip club

Suspended senator Patrick Brazeau has gone from the red chamber to the champagne room. Brazeau confirmed to the Citizen on Wednesday that he is the new daytime manager of Barefax Gentlemen’s Club in the ByWard Market — an Ottawa strip club.

OTTAWA — Suspended senator Patrick Brazeau has gone from the red chamber to the champagne room.

Brazeau confirmed to the Citizen on Wednesday that he is the new daytime manager of Barefax Gentlemen’s Club in the ByWard Market — an Ottawa strip club.

The confirmation comes one day after a patron sent an email to the Citizen saying Brazeau appeared to be working at the establishment.

Brazeau arrived at work Wednesday morning to meet a throng of reporters outside the strip club.

Inside, he told the Citizen the new job, which began Monday, was going well.

“So far, so good,” Brazeau said, moments after he had tucked in a recently emptied chair near the bar. An employee and the man she was chatting with had left that table a few minutes earlier.

Staff at the bar were checking in with Brazeau when the Citizen stopped by Wednesday. Brazeau has a set of manager’s keys.

The senator, who was wearing a blazer, dress shirt and slacks, said he had no immediate plans to become the nighttime manager at the club.

Asked if his new position was a change of pace from his senate duties, he simply replied with a smile: “It is what it is.”

Brazeau was charged last month with fraud and breach of trust for allegedly claiming improper housing and travel expenses.Separate from the Senate expenses allegations, he was arrested in February 2013 after an incident at his Gatineau home and charged with assault and sexual assault.

The job at Barefax does not contradict any of Brazeau’s release conditions for the earlier charges, court documents show.

Carmelina Bentivoglio, the daughter of the club’s owner, said Brazeau interviewed for a job as a day manager two weeks ago. He’ll be responsible for “scheduling, hiring, firing, inventory — just like any other job,” she said.

He’ll oversee between 25 and 30 employees, including bar staff, servers and dancers, some of whom were naked Wednesday afternoon.

“He was looking for a job, was speaking with my family member,” Bentivoglio said over the din of a pulsing pop-music beat.

“He knew that I was looking for somebody.

“So it just kind of landed on us, really. That was it.”

Brazeau is on three months’ probation, like any new hire, she said. And as far as special skills he might bring to the operation? “Probably public speaking,” Bentivoglio said. “He probably will be good with customers.”

Working at the Barefax is the latest odd job for Brazeau since he was suspended from the Senate last fall.

He took to Twitter to find work and tried his hand as a columnist for the Halifax version of Frank magazine, a separate entity from the Ottawa publication of the same name that first reported on Brazeau’s new job.

The magazine canned him after one-and-a-half columns, prompting an apology from the editor for subjecting readers to Brazeau’s “narcissistic ramblings.”

Brazeau has been without a steady Senate paycheque since his suspension in November. Prior to that, his pay had been docked to recover more than $48,000 in inappropriate housing and travel expenses.

Earlier this month, the Mounties charged Brazeau and former senator Mac Harb with one count each of fraud and breach of trust in relation to their travel and living expense claims.

The Mounties allege that Brazeau fraudulently claimed his father’s home in Maniwaki, Que., as his primary residence, although he was rarely seen there and lived primarily just across the river from Ottawa in Gatineau, Que.

Recent media reports also suggest Brazeau and his estranged wife have been missing mortgage and loan payments and may now face losing their house in Gatineau.

None of the criminal allegations against Brazeau has been proven in court.

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